Maryland Terps Beat Morehead State And Grow As A Team

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (WUSA) -- Ten minutes into the first half of Monday night's game against Morehead State, Terps head coach Mark Turgeon had already used ten players in his rotation. As Maryland stayed fresh and upbeat, the Eagles were slowing down and seemed exhausted. And that's one of the luxuries of this new Terps roster. They can go deep into their bench as much as they need to for any reason.

"If you sustain an injury; you sustain foul trouble. There are a lot of things where that depth is going to come in handy," explained Turgeon.

Maryland did not have the roster to do this a year ago. Last year's team had six walk-ons and that limited Turgeon to using an eight man rotation where the starters played heavy minutes. Monday night's rotation included eight players receiving at least 18 minutes.

"It's probably the deepest team I've played on as far as having players come [in and] out," said sophomore guard Dez Wells. "We have two players at each position that can just go."
Starting forward James Padgett only played 13 minutes, but Turgeon said that the senior was supposed to play even more. Finding minutes for all the players seems to be one of the few problems the team is dealing with.

"[Monday] was one of those nights like 'oh my gosh Nick's been sitting here for seven minutes. I [have to] get Nick back in the game but Jake's playing...' you know that was hard tonight," said Turgeon.

Having a strong group of guys also keeps the players on their toes. Junior guard Nick Faust says knowing his teammates are just as good keeps him honest.

"Practice is definitely competitive," Faust said. "We have, basically, guys who like me and Dez, who go at it everyday. Just try to get practice fired up and guys tuned into it."

At times on Monday night, the team seemed very cohesive. But offensively, they are still struggling. They shot more aggressively, but were very inaccurate at times, but that still doesn't bother Turgeon. He says it's all a part of the learning curve.

We're missing a lot of jumpshots we're going to make as the year moves on; [as we] get used to the system and playing in front of people," he said.

If he's right and they can put it all together, this can be a formidable team.